


Brightly Burning

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: Blood and Burning [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Complicated Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 01:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5951014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren cannot stop <i>feeling</i>, every emotion as brightly burning as the sun.</p><p>An alternate semi-sequel to <i><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5883097">Bloody Bedmates</a></i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brightly Burning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oneorangeshoelace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneorangeshoelace/gifts).



> As with _[Burning Hearts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5914594)_ this is a semi-sequel to _[Bloody Bedmates](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5883097)_ , and thus it will help if you read that to have some idea of what is going on. At the same time, that is not actually necessary, you should be able to understand everything from within this fic.
> 
> Unlike _Burning Hearts_ , however, this fic is a happy one, and is gifted to **oneorangeshoelace** , as mentioned above, for their request of the nice version of _Burning Hearts_. There is a playlist for this, which you can listen to [Here](http://8tracks.com/ereshkigal/blood-burning), tracklist [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/138915401730/blood-burning-a-semi-unrequited-kylux-playlist).

**Brightly Burning**

**i.**  
The Force, lashing around them, twisting as they do, warping between them, the meagre spread around Hux twisting and wrapping through Kylo’s vast ocean, melding them together as they fuck angrily against the wall. Kylo can see it, can see it all, so bright and dark and distinct from everything else. This is what he seeks, this perfect Darkness, this thing he cannot find on his own, that he only finds in these frantic moments with Hux. He’d almost resent it if he wasn’t so grateful, and his clawing fingers gentle where Hux’s do not, his teeth worry rather than tear and Kylo is not entirely sure if Hux has noticed.

He hadn’t the first time.

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
_I love_ \- Kylo thinks, a gasping, stuttered thought as he and Hux fight their way through another bout of hatesex. _I love-_ and it is interrupted by Hux’s teeth clamped down on the join of his neck and shoulder and Kylo is arching into it, fingers clawing at Hux’s back and in his hair, Force pressing at his throat just as Hux’s fingers press at the hollows of his, and his thoughts stutter as his vision spots with black and they twist together.

 _I love_ , he realises later, and comes very close to destroying his rooms.

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
_I am a million things_ , Kylo thinks, _and I am none_. _I am ~~Ben Organa-Solo~~ , I am ~~the first new apprentice~~ , I am **Snoke’s apprentice** , I am the **master of the Knights of Ren** , I am **Kylo Ren** , I am a human, I am a not-Jedi, not-Sith Force-user, I am Hux’s lover, I am ~~the son of Leia Organa~~ , I am ~~the son of Han Solo~~ , I am-_

He hovers in his mind, stretches out the Force around his shuttle into space and space and empty space, feels the nothingness everywhere, the complete lack of even Snoke’s oppressive thought, Hux’s order, what little he recalls of home and family and childhood, of the weight of his goals and tests and challenges, and he thinks _I am nothingness._

He’s not meant to be out here, but he’s needed it. The Force around him has been warping oddly, the Light tugging at him more, leading him further to that tearing midpoint between Light and Dark, the point Snoke wants him to master and that he knows he never can.

He is Light, at his core. All his family are, in the end. He can turn to the Dark, face it, fall into it willingly and freely but in the end he is not Dark any more than he is Ben Organa-Solo any longer.

There is no one in his ship. The comms are off. There is no one out there for miles and miles and _miles_ beyond counting. Kylo feels out the void, feels the Light and Dark within him like sunrise and sunset tugging him one way and the other while he tries to remain in twilight and he _screams_.

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
_I love_ \- he thinks, and he is biting Hux’s shoulder, Hux’s teeth grazing over his cheek, by his ear. He is biting, not to hurt, but to stifle any sound he makes, not just gasps but words, lest the words cycling through his mind spill into the world as he does. He can’t let them out, must hide them, the Light-warm, Light-bright litany of _love you love you love you_ that starts up each time he and Hux are like this, each time Hux is certain and fiercely bright and _shining_ even though he cannot touch the Force.

Hux doesn’t love him. Kylo doesn’t think, sometimes, that Hux _can_ love, _does_ love, but sometimes Hux is oddly gentle, almost kind, ensuring he puts salves on cuts and bites and bruises, and making sure they leave whatever room they used unseen. Sometimes, like now, Hux will let them rest a while afterwards, a few moments of lax muscles, Kylo’s face pressed to the join of his neck, almost nuzzling at the bruise left there. It’s oddly peaceful, wonderfully placid, a few moments not of hate, not of passion, not of anything but… Kylo thinks it is contentment. **_Love you_** , he thinks, and then hurriedly stifles the thought.

The Light is singing out again, bright and warm, and the Force around him is radiating happiness and peace and contentment. He tries to tug it in so Hux doesn’t notice, then remembers that Hux is about as Force-Sensitive as a brick.

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
It’s both calming and not, to share those moments with Hux. Even as he spends hours teasing apart the threads of what he feels, trying to pick apart their precise origin, their precise cause, even as he tries to understand quite _why_ the Light is tugging at him for _this_ , this simple base thing that pulls out the Dark so readily, he finds himself calmer, more steady, letting out all his anger and frustration and care, the things he must feel and must not feel. He doesn’t understand still, and knows that some days, days when the Light is singing strongly, Snoke will stretch out his mind to touch his and be burned.

Kylo knows he should apologise but cannot, he does not know why it flares like that, why it sings so strongly, swirling like shining silk within him some days and otherwise it feels like a vast ocean of ink, still and shadowed.

He doesn’t know, he doesn’t try to know, but still, somehow, _knows_ there is some link to Hux.

(He hides that thought though, buries it deep within the hidden recesses of his mind lest Snoke find it and punish Hux for his own failings.)

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
_I love-_ Kylo thinks, and lets the thought spread out and warm him, cut smoothly through rage and anger and frustration. The emotions are weakened already, and for all the Dark Force that is lashing around him like a caged animal, the Light is growing, glowing like a rising sun, like two, chasing away the Dark into shadowed corners.

They’re in Hux’s chambers for once, and Kylo can remember the strain that was sending out a Force illusion after their argument so people believed him gone and not – as he was – still there. They had been wild, Kylo knows, and yet the room remains pristine apart from the bed, torn apart by both their clawing hands, both of them covered in bruises and cuts. They lay all the same, quiet and content, Kylo half-nuzzling at a bruise left on Hux’s neck.

It takes him long moments before he realises that Hux is sleeping, eyes loosely shut and breathing gently, and shifts them, as gently as he dares. The bed is narrow – as beds aboard First Order ships generally are – and Kylo is quite aware that he is the taller and the stronger of them both.

He ends up leaning against the wall, Hux lying on his side against his chest, and does not think he has felt this peaceful in long years.

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
Hux wakes a half hour before the day-cycle begins. His room is quiet, his room is pristine, and for some reason he is still dressed and laying somewhat higher on the bed than he usually does. He feels his pillow rising and falling like breath and realises it _is_ , Kylo Ren sleeping, peaceful as a child, arms loose around him.

 _Oh **kriff**_ , he thinks.

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
_Oh love_ \- Kylo thinks, as Hux rises. He is quite aware that Hux is awake, but is careful to give no sign. His eyes remain softly shut, he keeps his breathing even, and lets Hux get up and make his way to the ‘fresher without stirring. Like this, thinking he is asleep, Hux is quiet, and, while not gentle, is, like ever, not doing anything to purposefully annoy him. Around him his meagre spread of Force hovers lightly, alert already, and Kylo mentally times how long he takes.

He takes scant minutes. (He is, Kylo thinks, always precise and efficient.)

Kylo is reasonably certain that Hux is not dressed when he emerges and so keeps his eyes shut until he hears the whispering noise of cloth over skin. When the noise stops and he’s pretty sure that Hux is simply neatening everything he cracks his eyes open to check, then opens them fully to watch Hux neaten his hair.

He tries not to grin at how Hux jumps when he asks, “Sleep well?”

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
_Oh kriff_ , thinks Hux, spinning to face Kylo. He looks remarkably alert for someone who had seemed to be asleep when he had emerged minutes earlier, and he files away the information. _Remarkably good at feigning sleep_. Kylo is oddly calm, for all the times he’s seen him, no swirl of violent emotion just beneath the surface of his eyes and while it would certainly amuse him to be cutting he is not going to refuse the opportunity to have a calm Kylo Ren on the ship.

“Well enough,” he says. “Though I would have preferred to have my bed to myself.”

Somehow, _somehow_ , Ren has the gall to laugh, and sits up. “You fell asleep on _me_ ,” he says. “I didn’t think you’d want to be disturbed.” He rises, plucks up his helmet with that damnable Force, sets his lightsabre at his belt, re-wraps his scarf. His robes are still stained, however, and Hux cannot help the raised eyebrow.

“I’ll leave when you do,” he says. “Force illusion so no one sees me and change my robes at my quarters.”

Hux doesn’t trust him, not this calm, not this controlled, this is _not_ the Kylo Ren he knows and it unnerves him.

Again he somehow has the gall to laugh. “I am the Kylo Ren you know,” he says. “Specifically, I am the Kylo Ren you’ve helped to make.” He puts his helmet on, lets the modulator change a light tone to a teasing one as he gestures to the door. “Shall we?” he asks. “It will be breakfast shortly.”

 

* * *

 

 **viii.**  
_Love_ , Kylo Ren’s mind shines out, and he stifles it, hides it away in shadowed corners and deep-buried caves within his mind. He thinks on what he said to Hux as he tugs the illusion tight around himself – _no one and nothingness, an emptiness to avoid_ – and weaves his way through the few people awake at this point in the cycle. _I am the Kylo Ren you’ve helped to make_.

If that gets back to Snoke they will both be in trouble, and Kylo could hit himself – does hit himself – for saying it aloud.

The worst thing is it’s _true_. Truer even than when he went out on his shuttle to reflect, he is become a different person than Snoke made him, different than who he was before that, some other creature calmer and more at ease than both. In his chambers he discards his helmet and sits before his grandfather’s, thinks and considers all the changes.

He is not the twilight spot between Light and Dark any more. He is not even fully Dark. He is a sunrise, brightening with every moment, and he fears what Snoke will do when he realises this, when he realises what – _who_ – has caused this.

 

* * *

 

 **ix.**  
Kylo watches Hux’s mind from a distance, in all its shining ordered glory. He adores it, much as he does Hux himself, but he fears it, in some ways. There is no way to help it or to save it as it is, so focussed as it is on serving the First Order and nothing else. Kylo knows this is treason, thinking like this, but he knows the bright Light of his mind burns Snoke to come too close to nowadays, and that he has grown skilled at feigning the twilit point between Light and Dark, while lacking the instability it once gave him.

Snoke won’t go looking into his mind.

It is a good thing, too. If he did he might find Kylo’s questions and queries, his wondering at the reason behind each thing, and might decide to hurt him. That, Kylo thinks he could bear. He does not think he could bear Snoke hurting Hux in his stead.

 

* * *

 

 **x.**  
_Love_ , he thinks, watching Hux from a corner of command. It is a great benefit of his mask that he can watch people without them knowing precisely whom he is looking at, and he takes full advantage of it. Very few people dare to ask why he is there and the only one who consistently does – Hux – is willing to warily accept the reason given of “In case I can be of use.”

The real reason is much simpler, and sings through his mind unceasingly.

 

* * *

 

 **xi.**  
“You are calmer,” Hux says one day, when they are walking alone down a corridor. It is a statement and not a question, and Kylo does not think it really requires an answer. “ _Why_ are you calmer?” Hux asks, and Kylo pauses.

“I think, General,” he says, “that the answer to that is quite obvious.”

Hux is mind flares bright, channelling information and logic and reasoning, stringing together cause and effect and extraneous details to form not just the obvious answer but all the things it might entail. It falls still, regiments reforming into neat order around their new created thought.

“You don’t hate me anymore,” Hux says, and wears the oddest smile.

 

* * *

 

 **xii.**  
_I love you_ , Kylo’s mind says, but he holds back the words. “Indeed,” he says instead, and watches Hux in silence as they walk several metres more. “I would wager,” he adds, tone careful, not that the helmet conveys it well, “that you do not find me so loathsome anymore either.”

Hux’s odd smile takes on a curious cast and he inclines his head. “Indeed,” he says, and that is all.

 

* * *

 

 **xiii.**  
Hux’s mind is ordered, so ordered, so precise and fixed, and even stress barely shows the faultlines it, like all minds, must have. Now that his mind burns Snoke’s to touch, and he is starting to distrust the tales told of his grandfather Kylo uses the precision of Hux’s mind as calming guidance in his meditations. The order to it is perfect, logical inputs, logical outputs, reasoning and working shown every step of the way.

Then one day he examines it closer.

 _For the First Order,_ is marked one part. _To serve the First Order_ , is marked another. _First Order, First Order, First Order_ , over and over and over, cyclical, as shaped and guided as any Stormtrooper’s mind. (Likely, Kylo thinks, even moreso than any and much more personally and precisely given the character of Commandant Brendol Hux.)

He considers. Hux’s mind has perfect order, perfect balance in every movement, but in the same moment every part of it is shaped from what it was to something else, some creature as loyal to the First Order as he had once been to Snoke, and he knows, on some level as intrinsic to him as the Force is to the universe, that this is _wrong_.

Within Hux’s mind Kylo Ren stretches out gentle fingers and buffs away the taint of the First Order.

 

* * *

 

 **xiv.**  
_Love_ , he thinks while doing this. _I am so sorry_. Hux will hate him, he knows, if he ever learns that this was done by him and not some inherent failing in the system. Hux will hate him for it if he learns and will hate him more if he finds Kylo Ren has been pushing his mind out of shape.

Kylo resolves that, once he has buffed out the checkpoint of _What the First Order requires_ from Hux’s mind he will never influence him again.

 

* * *

 

 **xv.**  
The changes in Hux are minute. It is almost as though he is aware of his changing mind, his altered logic, as though he knows that to change too much will damage him. Kylo watches keenly, eager to spot each new change as soon as they happen and commit them to memory.

He does not expect the change that leads to Hux asking, one evening in his rooms, “Do you really need this to keep you calm anymore?”

 

* * *

 

 **xvi.**  
_Oh, love_ , Kylo thinks, and mutely shakes his head. “No,” he admits, “But it’s calming all the same.”

Somehow their coupling that evening has none of the usual violence and is cathartic all the same. Kylo falls asleep with his arms around Hux and cannot recall sleeping so well in long years.

 

* * *

 

 **xvii.**  
Kylo wakes before Hux that morning and watches the new cast of his mind closely. It’s still as neatly regimented as ever, but instead of circling around the First Order it circles around what serves him and his goals best of all. It’s not certain yet – evidently Hux is not yet certain of his goals – and much of it ultimately roots back to the First Order, but it is changing and Kylo can see the doubts creeping in.

He knows Hux won’t say anything, least of all to him, Snoke’s personal attack dog, even tamed from the barking, biting beast he had been, but that doesn’t mean _he_ can’t say anything to Hux, if he can find an un-bugged, un-watched part of the ship to speak in.

Instead he decides to follow Hux to the ‘fresher that morning, and lets the rushing sound of water muffle his voice as he says, “Sometimes I doubt Snoke’s decisions are the best ones.”

Hux’s pale eyes are wide and he seems surprised to hear it, but his mind is not rejecting it outright as he steps under the water. “I don’t hear you say anything against them,” he offers instead, and Kylo allows himself a smile.

“That’s because,” he says, “I’m not nearly as reasonable as you are. I’d just go ‘that’s _stupid_ ’ and have my mind dismantled with the Force for my troubles.”

He can see Hux envisioning it, and half laughing at the idea before sobering at the very real prospect of punishment.

“It’s getting harder,” Kylo admits, “To believe in all of the First Order’s goals.” In his mind the Light shines out, singing with its own bright joy and somehow, for all Hux is not Force-Sensitive in the least, some Light within him sings back.

 

* * *

 

 **xviii.**  
_Oh,_ shines out of Hux’s mind and Kylo has never felt so glad. He can tell, already, that they will be spending longer in the ‘fresher than either of them usually would, but Hux always rises so early it will make no difference to his usual schedule. Kylo can see all the things they can discuss, should discuss, _will_ discuss spiralling out before them and smiles.

 

* * *

 

 **xix.**  
They take Kylo’s Upsilon-class when they decide to leave, and a datastick each of information. They get to an outpost and swap the Upsilon for a simpler ship, go to another outpost and swap it again. They know they will be tracked. Kylo was supposed to be taking this ship to Takodana, alone but for Stormtroopers, to trace down information on his Uncle, but with the Light shining so brightly he cannot betray family and singing Force so easily.

It is easier, by far, to betray Snoke.

Thus it is they travel from outpost to outpost, changing ship and ship and ship.

As Hux had pointed out, they can’t be too careful.

When they have gotten to their fifth ship – not an Upsilon-class but rather good all the same, with Kylo’s ability to fix just about anything improving each swapped-out ship they got and traded on – Hux sits in front of the Navigation and pauses. Sighs.

“Where to now?” he asks, and Kylo smiles.

“Nowhere navigable.”

 

* * *

 

 **xx.  
**_Home_ , Kylo thinks – or is he Ben now, his mind changed so far back? He can feel the Force flowing around them, feel Snoke’s stretching shadowed claws that now, so far away and so bright with the Light he can avoid with ease, one bright speck amongst many.

He can feel, far away, his mother shining out like a star, feel the Force girl who had been tugging at the Force without knowing, and points their ship towards it.

“D’Qar,” Hux says, reading it off the screen. “Are you sure?”

Kylo- _Ben_ nods. “Certain.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxi.**  
The planet is vast and green beneath them, and Hux thinks it’s difference startling compared to the dark light of the remains of Coruscant and the pale sheen of Starkiller base. He wonders, distantly, how Starkiller is progressing now, given the small sabotage he had worked into its design to ensure its failure. Have they found it yet? Do they build on, unaware? He wonders if he should be concerned for Phasma there, or for her troopers, but knows that they will get out when they learn its flaws if they test it. Instead he glances to Kylo – _Ben_ , the man had corrected him when they’d arrived. _Ben now. That’s who I am all over again_.

He’s meditating, face unworried, with no trace of anger or concern or… anything really. They know the location of the Resistance base, approximately, but they also know that touching down in an unidentified ship still in their First Order clothes without warning is an invitation to be shot at. Quite why Kylo- _Ben_ Hux reminds himself, _Ben_ – thinks that meditating will help is unclear, but he steered them to D’Qar unhesitatingly so he supposes he must know what he’s doing somehow.

 

* * *

 

 **xxii.**  
**_Love_** shines through Ben’s mind, bold and bright and glowing like the sun. He uses it as anchor and as power both and reaches out and down towards the planet, towards the warm orange glow he knows to be his mother’s. He can feel, nearby, the soft green glow as ready to grow as seedling Wroshyr tree of the Force girl’s mind, but reaches past it, towards his mother’s mind.

 _Mum?_ He asks, and feels her startle.

 _Ben?_ She asks, and the tone is half hoping.

 _It’s me,_ he sends back, soft and shining. He opens his mind to her, blooming like a flower, shows her the ship and Hux beside him, and hears her almost giddy laughter.

 _Come down_ , she says, and he has not felt her mind this happy since he was small and he and she and dad had taken a laughing day swimming in the lake. _Come down. I will meet you_.

 

* * *

 

 **xxiii.**  
Hux does not know how to read the expression on Ben’s face as he guides the ship down. It’s not affecting his ability to fly, but he seems apprehensive and excited and joyous all at once, sending the ship skimming through atmosphere, over trees, landing within sight of the base in a large clearing. His movements are almost darting as he settles them, lets the ramp go down, and stands, waiting, beneath the belly of the ship.

 

* * *

 

 **xxiv.**  
_Home_ , Ben thinks, and feels his mother’s mind approaching, Leia is not broadcasting it, but she is not hiding it either, and nor is the mind beside her, the glowing green one of the Force girl from Jakku. They come through the trees flanked on either side by pilots and people, and Ben rests his hand gently on Hux’s arm when he startles.

“It’s fine,” he says, and steps forward, dark boots harsh against the grass.

In front of him Leia is smiling, the Force girl looks wary and behind her someone who looks to be wearing Stormtrooper plainclothes is watching her closely from a spot beside a pilot. Ben almost fumbles as he unhooks his lightsabre from his belt, but catches it, offers it to his mother, ignition unguarded, blade pointed towards himself, his own hand half-covering one of the hilt openings.

Leia smiles still wider and takes it, tucking it into a pocket. “Hello Ben,” she says, and it is all too easy for him to fall into his mother’s embrace.

 

* * *

 

 **xxv.**  
They are put in cells, because they are defectors and unknowns to many, and for all Leia knows Ben to be quite honest in his intentions no one has forgotten how, as Kylo Ren, he ripped minds apart and killed Padawans. Ben doesn’t mind, Hux can tell quite easily, he seems happy, more at peace than ever, his mind gentle and reassuring against the edge of his own.

Some days he feels Ben’s touch, combing gently through his mind, soothing away the worry and concern that come with their uncertain imprisonment. He is aware, peripherally, that Ben is in his own cell, meditating, and is simply extending a sliver of consciousness to help him for the same reason Hux had always offered him bacta salves for the bites and bruises. The touch is gentle, soft as snow but not nearly as cold, and it’s somehow _familiar_ , making Hux cast his mind back to try to find where-

He can’t find it the first day, nor the second, nor the third. The fourth day Ben’s touch is talkative, telling him of how the Force girl is travelling off to find his Uncle, to bring back the great Luke Skywalker and the fifth it gentles again, a calming touch. The sixth day is much the same and Hux casts his mind back again trying to find why it feels so damn _familiar_.

He can’t and a seventh day comes and passes and an eighth and a ninth.

On tenth day the base is a rushing thing and Ben slips the information in swiftly after a moment of searching. _Uncle Luke is back_. Then his mind turns gentle again, breezing through softly, barely disturbing a thing. Hux casts his mind back, and tries to find where he has felt this befo-

Command. The day his mind had changed.

Anger rises, swirling and buffeting like wind on a parade ground, furious and fast and fed by a deepening well of anger.

The gentle touch of Ben’s mind recedes. _You touched my mind_ , he thinks, as loudly as he can. _You **changed** my **mind**._ He is almost shaking with fury, he can feel the metal of the bolted-to-the-floor bedframe shaking with him, as his mind snaps out, lashing and loud, **_how DARE you!_**

 

* * *

 

 **xxvi.  
_LOVE_** sings Ben’s mind and he stifles it harshly. He is hovering just beyond Hux’s mind, watching the lashing anger and knows he cannot blame him. Everything about Hux is control and precision, efficiency and self-awareness. Hux gave every order knowing he had thought through every option. Hux gave every disagreement with all the consideration he could offer, Hux decided everything based on control and self-control, efficiency and effectiveness, Hux had only allowed their hatesex on the _Finalizer_ because he was certain he could have the upper hand if he wanted it.

And now, as Ben watched, Hux tore through his own mind, trying to find how long and how many thoughts of his had been changed by his interference.

 _I’m sorry_ , Ben sends, a bevy of images and ideas and concepts, trying to impress upon Hux his reasons.

 _Get **OUT**_ , screams Hux’s mind, and Ben retreats, folds back into his own mind, opens his eyes in his cell and tries to stop shaking.

 

* * *

 

 **xxvii.  
** Ben is shaking in the corner of his bed when Luke comes in. He knows the sense of his Uncle, soft and peaceful blue, touches of green at the edges tending towards a rich gold, growing still even after all these years.

“Hello Ben,” Luke says, and it is as though the long years apart have not happened, as though there was no massacre to speak of. “Or do you prefer Kylo Ren?” he asks, and there is no judgement, somehow, his tone almost conversational. He huffs a laugh and sits on the chair. “I’m afraid I’m a little out of date. Han tried to update me but he seemed as shocked as anyone.”

Ben uncurls, and watches his uncle. He looks older now, but does not slump in his chair. His eyes are older and more watchful, and there are more lines, more grey hairs, the sense of an old and dull ache coming from his muscles.

“Ben, please,” he finds himself saying, and his uncle smiles. He adds on, so his uncle knows it to be certain, “Even Hux calls me that now.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxviii.**  
“You love him,” Leia says, and it’s a statement not a question. He knows why she is here, in his cell with him, watching him not warily but carefully all the same as she probes him gently about why he left the First Order.

Hux had come up, as he was wont to do in such a discussion and his mother had probed further about his chosen travelling companion. _Mother’s intuition_ , Kylo thinks before Leia shakes her head at him, smiling just a touch.

 _The Force_ , is impressed into his mind in the rich golden tones of his mother’s. “Besides,” she adds. “Your love curls around him like a contented cat.”

Ben is pretty sure he is blushing at that. He can feel the heat rising in his face, see his mother’s calm, assessing gaze, and slowly nods.

Leia smiles wider. “Don’t tell your father just yet,” she says. “He’s still trying to understand why you came back.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxix.**  
They are allowed out, eventually, when the information on their datasticks has been proven useful and actionable, and Hux’s silent sabotage of Starkiller causes the base to quietly implode when it’s aimed at the Hosnian system by his father. Hux is hustled away into intelligence, helping analysts and tacticians put together plans and networks, his mind shining with the new challenges. His knowledge of the First Order’s internal intricacies allow for new plans, better plans, better systems for their spies and informants.

Ben goes to train with Luke and the Force girl. It turns out her name is Rey, and she’s already better than Ben with only a few days of training.

(Somewhere, in the hidden dark corners of Ben’s mind, jealously curls, and resentment, but after a day of sparring, joyously challenging, he finds the Light burning it from its hiding places without any effort.)

There is a peace to it, finding his balance as a Jedi again, and he cannot help the joy he feels when his father arrives back from a trip with Chewie and the rogue ‘trooper – Finn, he learns – with a bag of kyber crystals.

Two days later Ben’s lightsabre is stable and blue, and Rey has a double-bladed sabre-staff as tall as she is.

Elsewhere, Ben knows, Hux works. Sometimes his face crops up in Luke's thoughts or Rey's, but he never talks to Ben. Ben can't bring himself to resent it until he sees Hux's face in his mother's mind and  _knows_  she has told him what she realised of Ben, the secret that Ben still had not told Hux in the hope of keeping his only friend close by. He sees Hux’s mind from a distance, turning and calm and pensive, and decides it is best not to interrupt.

 

* * *

 

 **xxx.  
** “I don’t love,” Hux says, and Ben feels his heart fall even as the Force around them sings. “I’ve never let myself, I don’t know if I _can_.” _That_ , Ben can understand. It was not as though Commandant Brendol Hux had ever encouraged good-feeling between people when they could work towards supreme efficiency, it would have been startling if it had been any different for his son. They are sat peacefully, watching the X-wings come in to land after some sortie or another, and if Ben listens he can hear wisps of the thoughts of those around them, mingled gladness and relief and the glowing concept of _success_. Beside him the meagre Force that hovers around Hux is as alert as ever. Ben stays silent.

“I don’t know if I can love,” Hux says, and it doesn’t hurt as much as it might. Ben can see where his nails are picking at the palms of his hands and he is tempted, so tempted, to take them in his and use the Force to seal up the scratches and cuts Hux has inflicted on himself.

“I know that I _care_ ,” Hux says, and stops picking his palms to gently reach towards Ben. Ben shifts his hands, lets his hands rest palm-up for Hux to take, and feels the rough picked-at skin slide across his own. “I care about you,” Hux says. “And, according to your Uncle, at least, you did not plant that in my mind.”

“I wouldn’t,” Ben says, and it is uttered as a prayer, a promise. “I only made you consider things apart from the First Order, nothing else.”

Hux’s gaze, pale eyes bright and clear, watches the last of the X-wings land. There is the least hint of a smile around his mouth. “All right then,” he says, and it is cheerful and hopeful in a way Ben never expected to hear from Hux. “Never influence my mind again, and we can see where we go from there.”

In Ben’s mind, around Ben’s body, in the Force that Ben can feel, the Light _sings_.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are, as ever, much appreciated!


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